Welcome to our final installment of the sneak peek into Cal's Student Athlete High Performance Center (SAHPC). Today we cover the section everyone has been waiting for: The Football Wing

You can check out our coverage of the Exterior in Part One and the Interior High Performance Core and Olympic Wing in Part Two.

Football Wing

Nota Bene: In this week's post we are not going to publish the exact locations of the offices and various rooms. While you can probably find a lot of this info elsewhere we felt that it was in the best interest of the department to respect their general privacy. Given the extremely high interest in Football (vs the other sports) we felt this decision was warranted more for the football team than the other sports covered.

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Our tour of the Student Athlete High Performance Center (SAHPC) continues with an exploration of the interior of the building. We checked out the exterior in yesterday's post. It's important to keep in mind that this is an active construction site and so much of what we will see is unfinished, but there are many places where things have been finished (including most of the painted and concrete surfaces). You'll see lots of wires and framing for all the fixtures that will be installed, but most of that stuff is coming in last. The pace of construction is frenetic. A university official informed me that with the CMS renovation the department is spending $10 Million a month on construction which is twice what a major capital project typically costs at Cal (this should give you a sense of the enormity of the project not "waste"). Speed and timeliness is priority (especially for the stadium). And while the stadium will not be done come September 1st 2012, they are certainly planning on playing their first game at Memorial (there just may be some pieces still being installed come the Nevada game). But THIS September will see the opening of the "Simpson Center." So let's take a look inside!

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On Friday, I had the opportunity to attend a special presentation and tour of the Student Athlete High Performance Center (SAHPC). The athletic department put out a nice spread and treated us to a special presentation of the new facilities at the I-House. After the presentation we donned hardhats and bright green safety vests as we toured the exterior and interior of the SAHPC. Today in part, we will cover the High Performance Initiative and the Exterior of the building. On Tuesday, tune in for the interior pics! All photos that do not list their origins are taken and hosted by me.

Getting wined and cheesed while presented with the athletic department's plans and High Performance Initiative:

The information in this post is based on the tour given by the athletic department, the department's High Performance website, and the presentation with Sandy Barbour, Athletic Director, and Keith Power, High Performance Director.

High Performance Initiative

via www.calhighperformance.com

Six years ago, before deficits hamstrung university budgets, Cal Athletics and its new athletic director Sandy Barbour set forth a vision to take the department to new heights of success. In its ‘High Performance Initiative,‘ the athletics administration articulated an agenda that sought more than the simple upgrade of facilities to the day’s standard. It aimed to foster the best in sports science and become "the world leader in the provision of high performance sport for student-athletes."   

In many ways the new High Performance Initiative is Cal Athletic’s response to the university’s long-standing preeminence in academia.  During our pre-tour reception, Initiative Director Keith Power suggested one of his goals was to have in Cal Athletics the kind of cutting-edge leadership in innovation already achieved by university academics. More than just reflecting Cal’s institutional ethic of excellence, however, the initiative proposes to utilize the first-rate resources available across campus departments– psychology, nutrition, physiology (Biomechanics, anyone?  Optometry perhaps?)– to provide student athletes a complete toolkit for optimizing performance.  And very much in the spirit of Cal, the High Performance Initiative intends to pioneer into territory not yet endeavored by any other national program.           

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The Pac-10/12 and Larry Scott have agreed to a media deal with both Fox and ESPN. The deal is reportedly worth $225 million dollars according to ESPN and $250 million dollars according to the New York Times and Jon Wilner making it the most lucrative deal for a conference in college sports to date. This is surprising news for three major of reasons:

1. The amount of money is not only staggering, it is record-breaking. And it is even more than was expected (read more below).
   
2. The fact that BOTH Fox and ESPN are in the deal is HUGE boon for the Pac-12 and an unusual compromise that maximizes the conference's exposure AND income. 
3. That the Pac-12 still has content available to create a Pac-12 network is perhaps the most brilliant strategic move of the deal and guarantees protection against future expansion and network capacity limitations.

The man that made it happen:

via www.sportstalkwithbo.com

After the jump a more detailed analysis of these factors and what they mean for the Pac-12. 

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via alumni.berkeley.edu

This nifty article at California Magazine introduced me to the original Oski. Apparently, according to its creator, Robert Colescott, he was lovingly cynically created to be a "funny loser." Oski was originally meant to help soothe the pain of a loss in football with his graphical antics in the Daily Cal. It got me thinking that we probably could have used some of that light-heartedness last season, and probably will again this coming season.

In a lecture called "A Few Thoughts about My Life in Art," Colescott described the Oski from his cartoons as a cynical creation meant to be a funny loser. This was a fairly accurate portrayal of the football team at the time, which was coming off a 4–6 season in 1940. In a recent interview, Colescott elaborated, explaining that the cartoon Oski would appear in the sports pages of The Daily Cal on Fridays and Mondays. "He had the hots for this young lady named Rosy Bowl. He was after Rosy Bowl, and each week he had to face off against someone else. There was an Indian (Stanford) and a husky and so forth. The simple story was that Oski didn’t do very well that year, and every Monday he would be beat up, destroyed one way or another, but still in pursuit." The costumed Oski creation was supposed to cheer up fans after each loss.

So in the original spirit of Oski's role, I thought "....hmmm, methinks we need a caption contest." 

After the jump the contenders and a call for personal Oski photos

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I think it is important to recognize the reaction that many are having towards Title IX and gender equity in education (which includes athletics at the collegiate level). By “blaming” Title IX it only serves to further strengthen the oppressive power that sexism holds over all of us (including men).

This isn’t about being “PC.” This is about recognizing genuine disadvantage and pain that has been caused by historic forces acting against women (and indirectly men).

I believe in the intelligence and creativity of the Cal community. If these sports are ever going to be reinstated then it is going to require a new approach, not just a rehashing of the old. The issue at hand is financial. The athletics budget year to year needs to be balanced end in a big fat ZERO or a positive number. That does NOT mean that all sports are subject to a ZERO-sum game.

We need to be REALLY careful not to assume that a cut to one sport indicates that another sport is more valued or that men’s sports are better than women’s sports or that women’s interests are greater than men’s. That leads only to creating more pain and suffering for everyone.

A better solution to the problem is one that improves the ability of the athletics department to fund all of the programs and have them all flourish. Right now only Men’s BB and FB make money. But what if that weren’t the case? We need to recognize that Title IX actually provides collegiate athletics with a really awesome opportunity.

What if women’s sports could make just as much money as men’s? Could you foresee a time when the athletics department budget actually contributes back to the university budget?

This isn’t a pipe-dream. But in order for it to happen we need to change our attitudes about what women’s sports can be and to support those sports achieve the level of competition and interest that men’s sports have achieved. The Pac-12 network may end up becoming its own channel. No other conference comes close to reproducing the level of competition or champions in all other sports (especially baseball) that the Pac-12 does. That network could be filled with awesome matchups in both women’s and men’s sports. Something no other conference could produce at such a high quality level. We have a real opportunity in the Pac-12 to move collegiate sports into the new millennium. With digital video so easily deployed and edited there is a HUGE opportunity to have a really cool network with really awesome content.

That can happen if we, AS FANS, rally around ALL sports at our beloved university. Let’s not make this about something that will only hurt us in the long-run. We can bring baseball back this way. This is really probably the ONLY way.